Evaluation of a peaceful conflict resolution and violence prevention curriculum for sixth-grade students

Purpose: To evaluate a Social Cognitive Theory-based violence prevention curriculum among sixth-grade students. Methods: The evaluation was conducted using a quasiexperimental pretest-posttest control group design. Students were pretested 2 weeks before the intervention started and were posttested 2 weeks after it ended. The study was conducted in four middle schools serving children and adolescents living in or around public housing in a southeastern city. The participants included all sixth-grade students who were predominantly African-American (88.7%), 41% lived in public housing, and 80% lived in homes with an employed head of household. The intervention schools had 292 students, and the control schools 412 students. The Peaceful Conflict Resolution and Violence Prevention Curriculum is a 13-module skills-building curriculum based on Social Cognitive Theory. It taught identification of situations that could result in violence; avoidance, confrontation, problem-solving, and communication skills; conflict resolution skills; the conflict cycle; the dynamics of a fight; and how to express anger without fighting. Main Measures: The primary outcome variable was a five-item scale assessing the frequency of fighting and weapon carrying behaviors (alpha = .72) and a scale measuring intentions to use violence in 11 hypothetical situations (alpha = .81). Levels of exposure to violence and victimization (alpha = .82) and depression (alpha = .86) were also assessed. The data were analyzed with general linear modeling with repeated measures. Results: At pretest, the intervention and control groups did not differ in gender, age, depression, exposure to violence, or any other demographic variable. A group x time interaction effect (p = .029) was found in the use of violence scale. From pretest to posttest there was a decrease in the use of violence by students in the intervention group and an increase in the use of violence in the control group. Most of the changes were accounted for by changes in the frequencies of carrying concealed guns and fighting resulting in injuries requiring medical treatment. A group x time interaction effect (p = .002) was also found for the intention to use violence scale. Students in the intervention group did not change their mean scores from pretest to posttest, whereas students in the control group increased in their mean intention to use violence scale scores. Neither interaction effect was influenced by gender, exposure to violence, or level of depression. Conclusion: The Peaceful Conflict Resolution and Violence Prevention curriculum appears to have positive short-term effects on self-reported use of violence and intentions to use violence by these middle-school students. (C) Society for Adolescent Medicine, 2001.